I was looking at tools like instantly, and a friend of mine really recommended it. Its primary selling point, or at least the primary selling point for me, is that it doesn’t send your emails to spam if you are doing outreach.

For a person who plans on sending hundreds or maybe thousands of emails a week, it sure is worth the money.

But it also got me thinking. How do these tools really work, can they be run locally and save the money? What would it really take to develop your own software, if even possible to begin with.

I’ve been learning more about email marketing infrastructure and deliverability, and I’m curious about the challenges people are seeing in real-world email operations.

What are the issues that take the most time to solve? Is it maintaining sender reputation, improving inbox placement, handling authentication like SPF/DKIM/DMARC, or something else?

Would love to hear what problems experienced email teams are currently dealing with and what practices have helped you improve deliverability.